IE 9 will soon get a "do not track" tool. Mozilla recently scrapped its currrent version of such a tool, under pressure from advertisers.

Microsoft might have just won back a few Mozilla users

In
a surprising juxtaposition, Microsoft is the one defending users from
overzealous corporate interests, while open source project Mozilla
bows to those same interests.

The item in question
is the so-called "Do Not Track" tool, explored by bother
companies. Typically, the online world is driven by advertising
-- either independent, or via a service (typically Google). But
traditional ads are only modest moneymakers. After all, there's
little guarantee that the user will click, or that they be interested
in buying what they accidentally or intentionally clicked on.

In
an effort to make more relevant ads, internet giants like Facebook,
Google, and others dump cookies on your computer. These cookies
track your web activities in explicit detail. And that makes
many users uncomfortable, as there's growing concern that the data
collected could be abused -- for example by foreign spies, corporate
spies, firms investigating individuals for infidelity, by health
insurance firms looking to raise rates on customers with fast food
addictions, or by malicious users like phishers or spammers to better
tailor their attacks.

Hoping to ban internet firms from
tracking your online activities, Mozilla devised the so-called "Do
Not Track" tool. But a couple months back -- midway in the
Firefox 4 beta testing cycle -- the company removed the tool, caving
to pressure from advertisers who were concerned that it might hurt
their revenue.

While The
Wall Street Journalreports that
Mozilla is working to return the tool in some form to the browser,
prospects of a true no-tracking solution seem unlikely.

Thus
it might surprise some that follow the U.S.
Federal Trade Commission's call for more browsers to
implement this kind of feature, that Microsoft has taken up the
banner of blocking tracking. The company announced that it
would be adding a new feature called "Tracking Protection"
to its upcoming browser, Internet Explorer 9.

Microsoft Chief
Privacy Strategist Peter Cullen writes:

By
designing these sorts of enhancements with privacy in mind at the
design phase, we're able to deliver a functionality that provides
consumers additional levels of control over what they want to engage
in and how they choose to do so.

We believe that the
combination of consumer control, an open platform for publishing and
Tracking Protection Lists, including lists that allow 'calls,' offer
progress and a good balance between empowering consumers and online
industry needs.

So
why is Microsoft suddenly becoming the champion of privacy? The
answer lies in revenue and consumer sentiment.

Though Internet
Explorer 8 did add
a private browsing mode earlier than Mozilla, IE long lagged
behind Mozilla in terms of ad-blocking and other privacy
technologies. This was largely because, in browsing's early
days, consumers didn't have as negative perceptions about the nascent
web-ad industry.

Microsoft as a larger company than most can
be a bit slow at responding to trends. So when public
sentiment shifted against online tracking, it took a while
to respond.

But ultimately many
experts say that Microsoft can say "no" to
advertising companies much easier than Mozilla or Google (the second
and third place browser makers) can. That's because ad income
is a relatively trivial portion of Microsoft's overall revenue, where
it is the primary source of Mozilla and Google's revenue.

In
embracing anti-tracking measures, Microsoft may finally have figured
out a clever business tactic to win back some who abandoned IE for
Mozilla Firefox. With IE 9 shaping up to finally be somewhat
fast and standards proficient, Microsoft makes a compelling case to
ditch the third parties and return to the fold.